Field of the Present Invention
The present invention relates generally to tennis court accessories, and, in particular, to tennis court partitions.
Background
It is common that a tennis court area is surrounded with a peripheral wall with a plurality of tennis courts arranged therein just by drawing lines on the surface of the courts plus it is conventional that there is no partition wall serving as a boundary between one tennis court and another adjacent to it.
A tennis ball typically rebounds strongly without reduction of rebounding force after impact against the surface of the fence located rearward of the back line. If such a strong rebound of a tennis ball takes place just at the rear of the back line, the ball may conveniently return back near to the player. However, if the ball is sent obliquely to either side of the fence rearward of the back line and runs into such a side, the ball may rebound toward and onto the adjacent tennis court when there is no partition between the tennis courts adjacent to each other. As a result of this, the players on the offending court are obliged to interrupt their game to retrieve the errant ball. Moreover the play going on in the adjacent court is also obliged to be interrupted when the tennis ball comes running in the adjacent court or service area thereof. Such interruptions occur frequently, and as a result critical points must be replayed. There is a further possibility that a player may accidentally tread on a tennis ball coming from the other court, causing injury.
Hence, an aspect of the technology described herein is to provide for addressing this situation.
Related patents known in the art include the following U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,521, issued to Berman on Mar. 29, 1977; U.S. Pat. No. 4,116,436, issued to Bjorhn on Sep. 26, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 4,290,602, issued to Kennedy on U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,290,602; 4,456,252, issued to Hartland on Jun. 26, 1984; U.S. Pat. No. 4,491,321, issued to Veenema on Jan. 1, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,377, issued to Weiss on 1989; U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,663, issued to Walker on Jul. 17, 1990; U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,235, issued to Sugu on Apr. 2, 1991; U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,226, issued to Cavanagh on Aug. 25, 1992; U.S. Pat. No. 5,407,178, issued to Long on Apr. 18, 1995; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,482,269, issued to Scott et al. on Jan. 9, 1996.